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what are the things to do in ny in 7 days

Though it may be synonymous with high-rise luxury, New York City has a wealth of top-class cheap and free attractions for savvy travelers to enjoy, exist they museums, park trails, brewery tours or theatre performances. Plus if you time information technology right, some ticketed venues have free entry times, as well. Here's our pick of the all-time free things to do in NYC this wintertime.

A jazz band playing on stage at St Nick's Jazz Pub, a former jazz club in New York.

Seeing live jazz is an essential New York experience for music lovers © Matt Munro / Lonely Planet

Jazz at Barbès

Having helped to launch the careers of legendary jazz artists like Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, New York City'due south pocket-size guild scene is enshrined into the pages of jazz history, and seeing a live show hither is an essential NYC experience for music lovers. If iconic venues similar the Hamlet Vanguard and Smalls are way out of your price range, head across the bridge to Barbès in Brooklyn to enjoy stellar nightly performances for free (though donations to the band are always profoundly appreciated).

African Burial Ground National Monument

In 1991, construction workers uncovered a burial ground filled more than 400 caskets containing the bodies of enslaved Africans from the 17th and 18th century – an age when New York had more than slaves than any American urban center exterior Charleston, South Carolina. Today, visitors can bout the African Burial Ground National Monument site and visit the compact visitors center to learn about African-American history in the city.

American Folk Art Museum

With mediums from photography to quilting to atmospheric condition vanes in its collection, the American Folk Art Museum is devoted to the appreciation and expressions of self-taught artists, spanning all time and place.

A colorful graffiti image of a woman with her eyes looking to the sky painted on a wall in New York City.

The Bushwick Collective celebrates graffiti as an art form © Christian Mueller / Shutterstock

Bushwick Collective

Curated past Bushwick native Joe Ficalora, the Brooklyn Collective is the unofficial graffiti museum that brings together summit street artists from all effectually the globe. Spanning multiple buildings and several blocks, the art is all temporary, legal and rivals annihilation you'll see in a museum.

Bronx Museum of the Arts

One of NYC's many free-entry museums, the Bronx Museum of the Arts' mission is to promote cantankerous-cultural dialogue and make art accessible for various urban audiences. Founded in 1971, its thousands of pieces of contemporary and 20th-century art span all mediums. A universal gratuitous admission policy was implemented to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

City Hall

Home to New York City'southward authorities since 1812, City Hall is one of the oldest metropolis halls in the USA that is still used for its original purpose. Tours take in its cupola-topped marble hall, the governor'due south room every bit well as the spot where Abraham Lincoln's coffin lay in state briefly in 1865 – make sure you reserve your spot in advance.

New York's Central Park with ice rink and Manhattan skyline

New York's iconic Central Park ice rink with the Manhattan skyline © stu99 / Getty Images

Central Park

Information technology doesn't take brilliant travel minds to tell you that a park is gratis to visit – most parks are. Only nigh parks aren't Central Park, Manhattan's famed merits to thinking ahead (even if it was designed in the 1860s to boost real-estate value uptown).  It's filled with free events, statues, people-watching and sites similar Strawberry Fields, an "Imagine" mosaic near the Dakota, where John Lennon was killed in 1980. Another site is "the Pond," at the southeastern corner, where Holden Caulfield kept turning to in The Catcher in the Rye, wondering where those ducks get when it's cold.

Chelsea galleries

New York's most concentrated area for a gallery crawl is in Chelsea, generally in the 20s streets betwixt tenth and 11th Avenues. Check Gallery Guide for listings. All galleries are free entry, with no pressure to buy. And endeavor timing your visit for wine-and-cheese openings on Th evenings.

Fashion Constitute of Technology (FIT) Museum

Information technology's ever Manner Calendar week in the FIT Museum, which features rotating exhibits past students and a surprisingly interesting and detailed collection of the country's first gallery of manner, picked from a collection of 50,000 garments dating from the 18th century to present.

A statue of George Washington at the Federal Hall in New York City. American flags hang around the statue, along with towering skyscrapers.

A small museum of mail service-Colonial New York can be found inside Federal Hall © Kamira / Shutterstock

Federal Hall

2 presidents were inaugurated in New York City. George Washington took the oath in Federal Hall in 1789, dorsum when New York was the first capital, and the site was domicile to the start Congress, Supreme Court and Executive Branch offices (Chester A. Arthur was the 2d). There'due south a nice statue outside, overlooking the New York Stock Substitution beyond Wall Street and a small museum on post-colonial New York within, which includes the bible Washington used to swear his oath of office.

General Ulysses Southward. Grant National Memorial ("Grant'southward Tomb")

Also called "Grant's Tomb," the imposing $600,000 granite structure that holds the remains of the Civil War hero and 18th president, and his wife Julia, is the largest mausoleum in the USA, inspired by Mausolus' tomb at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Governors Island

The ferry to Governors Island is $three circular trip (gratuitous on Saturdays and Sundays before noon), but access to the 172-acre island – which is open May through September – is free. There's a 2.two-mile bike path, mini golf, art installations, a picnic area, plus war machine sites such as Admiral'southward House and a "ghost town" of sorts at Nolan Park. Guided tours depart from the Soissons Landing Welcome Eye.

A green Brooklyn Brewery logo is plastered on the side of brick building.

Bask free weekend tours at the Brooklyn Brewery © Jose Otero / 500px

Brooklyn Brewery tours

Complimentary tours of Williamsburg's Brooklyn Brewery run Saturday and Sunday every half 60 minutes starting at 1pm, with the last tour offered at 6pm.

BRIC House and BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Concert Series

Flanked past the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Mark Morris Dance Theater, the BRIC media center is in the middle of the thriving Brooklyn art scene and a leading presenter of no-toll cultural programming in the borough, with free admission to two performance spaces and a gallery.

In the summer, the system curates the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! serial in Prospect Park, with a bulk of the concerts and performances – which in the past has included tUnE-yArDs, Ailey II, Chaka Khan and Janelle Monae – free of accuse, with no ticket necessary.

G Central Partnership Walking Tours

Ii urban historians lead free ninety-infinitesimal walking tours at 12:30pm every Fri, covering the architecture and social history of Midtown East and hit places similar Thou Cardinal Concluding's "whispering gallery" and the Chrysler Edifice.

Green-Wood Cemetery

One time the nation's most visited tourist attraction outside Niagara Falls, the gorgeous Green-Forest Cemetery was founded in 1838 and is the eternal habitation to some 600,000 people (or well-nigh 530 miles of bodies, head to toe). It's leafy and lovely, features Brooklyn's highest signal at Battle Hill – a site from the Revolutionary War at present marked with a seven-foot statue of the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva. Lookout for the squawking dark-green parakeets at the cemetery's Gothic entry – according to local legend, these non-native birds arrived after a mishap at JFK Airdrome in the 1980s and accept been in the cemetery e'er since.

Hamilton Grange National Memorial

You know you lot've made information technology when y'all own a "grange" state manor (the next level unlocks when a hit Broadway musical is written about your life). Hamilton Grange is the Federal-fashion state retreat where Alexander Hamilton spent quieter, pre-death-past-duel New York days. You're able to walk through on your own, merely a guided tour is necessary to run into the historically furnished rooms. They're offered iii times daily.

A group of people walk across the wooden planks of the High Line on a sunny day

The High Line is a bucolic escape from the New York Urban center streets © Marco Rubino / Shutterstock

The High Line

It may technically exist a public park, just the expanding The High Line project has the impact and feel of a real-life tourist attraction, complete with its own opening hours of 7am to 7pm. Created from an abandoned stretch of elevated railroad track, the landscaping of this park (which stands 30 anxiety in the air) connects the Meatpacking District with Chelsea's galleries, ending at the Javits Heart on the south side of Hell'south Kitchen. There are wonderful views of the Hudson River and of pedestrians on the sidewalks below. Go on an eye out for pop-upward public art installations and events.

Japan Social club

The films and lectures usually involve a ticket, but the gallery exhibits at the Japan Guild, which focuses on Japanese art, are free from 6pm to 9pm on Fridays.

National Museum of the American Indian

Situated in the spectacular old Alexander Hamilton U.Due south. Customs Firm (1907), the National Museum of the American Indian is i of the land'south finest collections of Native American art. The focus of its meg-plus items, also as its programs, is on culture rather than history.

Interior shot of the expansive Rose Main Reading room at the New York Public Library. There are multiple wooden tables and a very ornate ceiling with large chandeliers.

The expansive and ornate Rose Main Reading room in the New York Public Library will stop y'all in your tracks © Jiawangkun / Shutterstock

New York Public Library

New York'south near famous library, also known as the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, is situated in a thou Beaux-Arts icon east of Times Square. Fronted by marble lions named "Patience" and "Fortitude," it's a jaw-dropper to walk through – peculiarly the reading room fit for 500 patrons poring over tomes under the library's original Carrère and Hastings lamps. There are exhibits too, including a copy of the original Declaration of Independence, a Gutenberg Bible, plus 431,000 old maps. Free tours take identify at 11am and 2pm Monday to Saturday, with an exhibition tour at 2pm on Sunday.

Shakespeare at Sunset

Y'all can try your luck to win free tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, managed by The Public Theatre, via the digital lottery and standby lines, but just in instance you lot don't win, you lot tin can also become your set of the Bard – with some romantic lighting –  at Shakespeare at Sunset, hosted by New York Classical Theatre at non-traditional public venues beyond the metropolis, including the Brooklyn waterfront.

New York Earth Room

Now for something completely different. The Earth Room, Walter De Maria'southward 1977 art installation, is a unmarried room filled with 280,000 pounds of dirt, combining the framework of an ordinary office with the scent of a wet wood. Strange? A little. Memorable? Definitely.

Goat head sculpture of Nari Ward in Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City.

Some truly unique works of art are on show at the Socrates Sculpture Park © MDLR Media / Shutterstock

Socrates Sculpture Park

Overlooking Roosevelt Island and the Upper Due east Side on the E River, the former landfill site turned Socrates Sculpture Park is a playful and gratuitous outdoor museum and public park with big-scale interactive sculptures and multimedia art installations. On Wednesdays in the summer, gratuitous movie screenings take place, with an emphasis on foreign films, preceded past corresponding music and cultural performances.

Staten Isle Ferry

The Statue of Liberty is a must-run across, just the ferry tours in that location get-go at $xviii for adults. Enter the Staten Island Ferry, which cuts across the New York Harbor 24 hours a twenty-four hours, 7 days a week, offering a stellar view of Lady Freedom, for free (and bonus: there's nutrient and drinks for auction on board). Having been in service since 1905, the ferry carries xix meg people across the harbor each year.

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Source: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/best-free-attractions-new-york-city